Two years after the unanimous vote to decriminalize abortion in the northern Mexican state of Coahuila, Mexico’s Supreme Court has decriminalized abortion across the country. Until September 2021, abortion in Mexico was illegal in almost all states and punishable by up to 30 years in prison in some. The ruling had initiated a long process of decriminalization in all states: in the few where it had remained illegal, it will no longer be illegal.
Under the ruling, which removes the crime of abortion from the federal criminal code, the federal public health service and all federal health care facilities must offer an abortion to anyone who requests it.
In recent years, as many parts of the United States began severely restricting their citizens’ access to abortion, several Latin American countries have decided to ease their own abortion restrictions. After the overturning of Roe v. Wade (who introduced abortion rights throughout the United States), last June many women living in the south of the country began traveling to Mexican states where abortion is legal to terminate their pregnancies.
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